Thing 12 - wiki

Screenshot of wiki contribution:-

I think this is just what we want for our staff manual. Will have a play with uploading some of our documents and editing them. It means we can all edit processes as they change and everybody will know where to find the latest procedures.

Very useful for any collaborative ventures.

Mind you - don't know what happened to by Google gadget - it's on my edit screen but no sign on wiki - still haven't cracked it. Nil desperadum! There's always tomorrow.

Thing 11 - pigs and vege

Google docs - seem very easy to use - even I managed it. Screenshot below. It's also easy to share - see if anyone responds to email.

Was delighted to be able to produce a form. Jumped in with both feet so didn't compose a proper question - but great fun, (on the subject of pests and vegetables.) Screenshot below - no it isn't - Isla - help!

Still to try slide option and powerpoint.

Librarian of the future

Had an interesting meeting yesterday set up by Niamh re librarian of the future. I had further thoughts on the topic which I thought I'd like to note.

-Lack of marketing and PR has been a major problem. Librarians of the future need to spin like all the other professionals - branding is important! I believe marketing needs to concentrate on the time which can be saved by the organisations and by individuals if they are given accurate, quality information, which is where librarians come in. Specialists, eg. doctors, lawyers, civil servants, engineers etc. often don't have the time to put aside for this. Their time is also more expensive to the organisation than ours!

-Teaching searching techniques/critical appraisal of specialist papers/referencing comes into our brief for future development. Librarians might be more accepted in some institutions if librarians had teaching qualifications. A 4 year degree in librarianship, with the 4th year equivalent to the 1 yr postgrad. teaching diploma might help.

-The researcher I heard speak in the last year - can't remember which meeting - gave a list of his wants which included:- copyright advice, help with getting published, help with citations, help with indexing terminology, open access advice. All of this could fall within our brief for the future.

-Librarian of the future - unlikely to have a fixed abode if working in a scientific community- outreach to researchers and departments. Not governed by physical space.

- Some specialism in licensing and legal terminology for publisher deals. Negotiation skills.

- Understanding techiniques of digitisation and promoting it.

- Management skills - the library is as good as its staff.

- "What people think is important isn't necessarily what we think is important" (Terry Kendrick)- Has CILIP every surveyed different user groups to ask their needs? "Information only has value when you use it." Our core users need to believe in us. We have to make an effect, publicise it and collect testimonials to justify our existence to our stakeholders in order to be at the top of the pile.

That's enough pontficating for 1 morning!

Interested to hear other ideas!

Things 8-10

Here we go with Thing 8. I never give myself time to arrange my bookmarks. I started to make folders once, but it became too time consuming and I couldn't be bothered. Please ignore all duplicate entries.

That's not why we're doing it anyway. Yes, easy to bookmark on both Internet Explorer and Mozilla. Really too easy - if I'd had to think about it I'd 've put them in folders and been tidy. (possibly) As it is - if I can't find something, then I just look it up again and bookmark it. Maybe I'll rationalise it sometime. Watch for flying pigs. Hope we aren't being marked on style!



Thing 9. That was last week. Can I remember it? Oh yes, -but it doesn't fancy uploading here -- yup - do I have to do another blog? No. It's uploaded at the opposite end of the blog. Nil desperandum. Well this is Thing 9. I was going back to front- (started at Thing 10) - so what's new? Yes, I could remember this - easy to use and useful. Admittedly, I've done it before, but it posed no great problems. Of course - it's not a share - like delicious, but it's quick and easy. Not sure why this has been part underlined - inanimate objects 15 Collins 0.


Basically, 'cos I'm idle, I find the conventional bookmarking easier than using delicious. Having just spent a while on it - possibly not helped by using Internet explorer - which I found didn't support Bookmarklets on delicious. I was still able to bookmark, using the copy and paste option, but it wasn't the method I wanted. Later I used Firefox and bookmarklets. Hurray - it worked!







You can see how I'm moving towards a "food/cake" theme! Quelle surprise! How about a library book cake Isla?!






Yes, delicious would be very useful for groups of people in one area of research to share useful sites with similar tags. The lack of a thesaurus would worry me - too many synonyms etc. Am not keen on finding my way thro' free text - there are too many possibilities.

Sand Music

Caught this on the radio - "Museum of curiosities" last night.

Did you know that the Sand Mountain in Nevada emits a low C, while dunes in Chile sound an F, and those in Morocco a G#?

You could make a choir!

Sand
A journey through science and the imagination
Michael Welland
352 pages 50 black and white images, 8pp colour plate section 234x156mm
978-0-19-956318-0 Hardback 13 August 2009
Also available as: Paperback
Price: £18.99

Can also recommend:-

http://www.sarahbakewell.com/Other%20Writing.html#Cookingwithmummy

-not for the squeamish! - medicinal uses of mummies!

You could order parts in the Merck catalogue in 1908. Interesting "alternative" medicine.

Mummies were also used to fuel the boats at the relief of Khartoum - typically British!

Thing 7

I think all the RSS feeds are very useful and will save a lot of time, since they are all being handed to you on a plate and give you the up-to-date news. You might have missed them if you had to check each site.

I hadn't realised the potential of Google Reader -first time I've tried it. I found I spent quite a while with it - particularly the optional task. I didn't find the different tabs easy to sort out. ( Lost "reader settings" and "folders and tabs" - will ask those more informed amongst us.) I produced something - but if I tried it again it would still take a while. Generally, I thought it was very useful for sharing information. I found the NHS site easy to use and the browsers were OK.

Optional Thing 6

Thought I ought to try the optional task - it's be good to share useful resources amongst colleagues and fun ones with friends.